More than 15 lakh people have been vaccinated against Covid-19 in Bangladesh since the country launched its vaccination drive on February 7, said Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen today.

Fifteen people have died from Covid-19 in the country in 24 hours (till 8am today), according to a press release issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sharply criticized the “wildly uneven and unfair” distribution of Covid-19 vaccines on Wednesday, saying 10 countries have administered 75 percent of all vaccinations and demanding a global effort to get all people in every nation vaccinated as soon as possible.

A laboratory study suggests that the South African variant of the coronavirus may reduce antibody protection from the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE vaccine by two-thirds, and it is not clear if the shot will be effective against the mutation, the companies said on Wednesday.

India will provide two lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccine to UN peacekeepers as gifts, India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has announced.

Pfizer has not yet delivered to the European Union about 10 million Covid-19 vaccine doses that were due in December, EU officials said, leaving it about one-third short of the supplies it had expected by now from the US company.

Gaza will receive its first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday after Israel approved the transfer through its border with the Hamas Islamist-run territory, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

South Africa will administer its first COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, with President Cyril Ramaphosa to get the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) shot alongside health workers.

Sixteen people have died from Covid-19 in 24 hours (till 8am today), according to a press release issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

Nearly 4,000 Indonesian firms, many of them textile companies, have signed up to take part in a proposed scheme that would allow the private sector to purchase Covid-19 vaccines procured by the government and inoculate their staff.

The minimum age for Covid-19 vaccination will remain 40 for now, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said today.

India will increase the number of its Covid-19 vaccination sites by up to five times after administering nearly 9 million shots in a month, a government official said on Tuesday, amid concerns about the speed of coverage in the country.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Tuesday that his government will present a complaint at the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday about the unequal access to COVID-19 vaccines globally.

India has detected both the South African and Brazilian coronavirus variants and people returning from those countries may be tested more aggressively, health officials said on Tuesday.

Thirteen people have died from Covid-19 in the country in 24 hours (till 8am today), according to a press release issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

Australia’s regulator on Tuesday approved the AstraZeneca vaccine as its second for use against Covid-19.

The makers of COVID-19 vaccines are figuring out how to tweak their recipes against worrisome virus mutations — and regulators are looking to flu as a blueprint if and when the shots need an update.

The World Health Organization has given emergency use approval to AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccines, allowing distribution to some of the world’s poorest countries to begin.

Britain’s drug regulator is auditing manufacturing processes at Serum Institute of India (SII) which could pave the way for AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine to be shipped from there to the UK and other countries, according to two sources close to the matter.

China is cracking down on vaccine-related crimes, making dozens of arrests over the production and distribution of fake coronavirus vaccines, price gouging and illegal inoculations, the official Xinhua news agency reported.